


Here's To My Love

by Dolevalan



Category: Sweeney Todd - Sondheim/Wheeler
Genre: Gen, Suicide Attempt, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-30
Updated: 2006-03-30
Packaged: 2018-04-05 05:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4167006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolevalan/pseuds/Dolevalan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The importance of the day depends on the person experiencing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here's To My Love

The bottle was small and brown – innocuous enough, despite the clear warning stenciled on the label. Lucy turned it over and over in her small hand, the weight of the liquid in its glass prison somehow reassuring. Like a decision well past, the burden of uncertainty long gone. As the earnest looking man behind the counter returned her several shillings of change, she slipped it carefully into her reticule, using her handkerchief to swaddle it like a newborn.  
  
_Nellie rubbed her forehead absently, smearing flour from her wrist to her face. She still hadn’t quite got the hang of making the pies completely alone, and it took more effort than she’d been expecting. She couldn’t even get away to see Mr. Barker’s trial – and Mrs. Barker had been no help ever since they shipped him out. But something had changed, recently. The baby was crying upstairs, and Nellie glanced up at the ceiling, debating going to check on the girl when the door’s bell protested with a tinny sigh. Hopes of a customer were dashed, however, when she saw Mrs. Barker returning. “Baby’s been crying, mum. Probably ‘ungry, I’d wager.”_   
  
She hadn’t seen the streets she passed through, the people turning to stare with only superficial attempts at discretion. It wasn’t that she was numb; no, she could see everything perfectly…feel everything. Perfectly. But there was no reason to take note of anything in particular, from the threat of rain, to the tear escaping her own pale eye to trace the pale curve of her cheek. Each step was a choice already made, and it was someone else controlling her steps as she slipped back into the pie shop on Fleet Street. Mrs. Lovett looked up from her rolling pin, giving her a critical look as she mentioned the baby. Let her look. It didn’t matter anymore.  
  
 _Mrs. Barker looked a mess. Not that she was shoddily dressed or had forgotten to attend her hair. The change was harder to place than that. Sorrow at her husband’s fate had already made her paler and thinner than she had been before, more subdued. Nellie had never understood how Mr. Barker loved such a pale, puny thing, even before his trial. She had expected such a girl to fall apart completely, but she hadn’t. But ever since the new year, looking in Mrs. Barker’s eyes was like looking in a window with the curtains drawn – all you could see was a pale reflection of yourself._   
  
“I’ll get her, thank you, Mrs. Lovett.” Lucy turned to mount the stairs up to the empty rooms above. Johanna’s shrill, almost panicked cries gave her a momentary twinge. Almost enough to make her hesitate, but not quite; she was finished with hesitation, with doubt. One black glove rested on the banister, as if she were gathering a breath before the long climb upstairs.  
  
 _Nellie turned back to her pies, shaking her head a little. Men were fools – if Mr. Barker had possessed a flaw, surely it was loving this weak, slip of a thing. If he hadn’t, he might have been happy…and he certainly wouldn’t have been transported, poor thing. Offhand, as the other woman began climbing upstairs, Nellie asked, “Where were you off to so early, mum? The market at St. Dunstan’s won’t be open for an hour yet.”_   
  
Lucy paused. The sunlight streamed in through the window, making Mrs. Lovett’s hair an auburn halo, and the scene was so cheerily domestic that, for a moment, Lucy could swear she felt the ground tilt beneath her as surely as if aboard a ship. Her hand tightened against the polished wood, as she started for a moment. The silence was long enough that Mrs. Lovett looked up again. She had a kind face, Lucy thought, even if she was sometimes rough.  
  
 _Mrs. Barker was just staring there, looking at her as if silently asking a question, though for the life of her, Nellie couldn’t imagine what it was._   
  
Licking her lips, Lucy said quietly, “I was just…picking up some medicine. I haven’t been feeling very well, of late.” Her free hand clutched her reticule tightly as if Mrs. Lovett could somehow see through the material to the small brown bottle inside. Words poised on the edge of her lips, ready to fall into the kitchen below and ask the woman to care for Johanna. But if she suspected…she might call for help. Surely she’d take care of the child, without having been asked. It was only decent, considering. She swallowed the ill-advised question, smoothly, and turned to mount the stairs and take care of her daughter.  
  
 _Nellie watched her go up the stairs. A queer one, Mrs. Barker. But hopefully she could get the kid to stop screaming to wake the dead. She turned back to the dough she was rolling. It didn’t matter – as long as her tenant could keep scraping by with the rent, she could be as queer as she liked._   
  
“Ssh, ssh. My Jo, my jing, Mother’s here.” Lucy closed the door behind her, putting down her reticule and removing her bonnet as she moved to the cradle. “Poor darling…” She checked Johanna for an injuries, for changing, a pin sticking her. No on all three counts. Lucy rocked the baby, moving over the window to look out the window, humming soothingly in her daughter’s ear. “Your father’s at tea with the Sweedish king…ooo…” She looked out on the dim alley; the window didn’t afford much of a view. Slowly, though, the motion and the sound of the lullaby calmed Johanna back into an easy sleep.  
  
She settled the baby back into her nest of blankets, small peaches and cream face moving slightly as if she were dreaming. Perhaps she was. Lucy leaned in to kiss her lightly. “Be happy, my Jo,” she whispered.  
  
The easy fatality had returned, after the short exchange downstairs. For a moment, she’d considered turning back, but now she held the bottle up, watching it shine in the light. The liquid was dark through the filter of the glass, swishing slightly as Lucy turned the bottle in her hand. Perfect.   
  
Lucy went into the bedroom, their bedroom, and arranged herself on her side of the bed. For a moment, she closed her eyes and imagined she could almost feel Benjamin’s weight and warmth next to her. This time, she did feel the tears escape and run down her face, but she ignored them. Tears hadn’t helped then, and they wouldn’t help now. She said an “Our Father,” quietly so as not to wake the baby, and then unscrewed the cap. Her eyes closed again as she tilted back her head and let the vile-tasting liquid slip down her throat, the surprisingly small quantity hard enough to get down. But she was finished. Her eyes did not open again as the empty brown bottle hit the floor without enough force to shatter.


End file.
